The U.S. Department of Justice formally dropped its criminal prosecution of Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball’s career home run leader.
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In his 2003 testimony, Bonds admitted to the grand jury he had taken substances often known as “the clear” and “the cream” from Anderson however stated he thought they have been flaxseed oil and arthritis ointment.
The decade-long investigation and prosecution of Bonds for obstruction of justice ended quietly with the DOJ’s one-paragraph court filing announcing it would not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a lower court’s reversal of his felony conviction.
In addition to going all the way to the Supreme Court, the DOJ could have also asked the 11-judge panel to reconsider the April decision to overturn the conviction, or they could have asked all 29 judges on the 9th Circuit to rehear the case.
Since his retirement, Bonds has all but completely faded out of the public eye. In addition, the slugger was convicted on one obstruction charge in 2011, and the jury deadlocked on three perjury charges.
He served the home confinement before his conviction was overturned. He told the jury personal trainer Greg Anderson never injected him with PEDs. I became a celebrity child with a famous father. The U.S. Solicitor General, who ordinarily makes final decisions on whether to appeal cases to the high court, elected against pressing the Bonds appeal, according to the court document.
In his third year on the Hall ballot in 2015, Bonds received 202 votes for 36.8 percent from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Bonds had been sentenced in 2011 to two years’ probation, 250 hours of community service, a fine of $4,000 and ordered to spend a month of monitored home confinement.
In 2007, Bonds retired from baseball with 762 career home runs, which broke the previous record of 755 set by Hank Aaron.
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Though Bonds is no longer a felon, many fans – and even some baseball peers – have concluded that he cheated by using performance-enhancing drugs.
